8/16/11

Wonder if the GOP even knows what a smart grid is

Smart Grids Highlight Innovation's Promise and Where America Leads the World, Even China - Forbes: "With a smart grid we would produce, move, manage, and use the electrons that comprise electrical energy not the way we handle oil, but the way we distribute the electrons that comprise the information on the Internet. This will be as fundamental an architectural transformation of the electricity business, as it was for the communications business."

With support we would be much farther along. With the GOP we are going the other way.

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All is not easy when you speak your mind in Egypt

Egypt must drop charges against blogger accused of ‘defaming’ military on Twitter | Amnesty International: "Asmaa Mahfouz, 26, was summoned by military prosecutors on Sunday and later released on bail of 20,000 Egyptian pounds ($3,356) after posting messages on the social media network expressing concerns about the Egyptian justice system and the actions of the military government, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF)."

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Indonesia should come down hard on mob intimidation

Indonesia: New mob attack on Ahmadiyya amid sentencing controversy | Amnesty International: "The Indonesian authorities must act to halt attacks on the country’s Ahmadi minority, Amnesty International said today, after a radical Islamist group led an attack on the Ahmadiyya in Makassar, South Sulawesi. "

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Being Gay and in prison in Cameroon could prove lethal

Cameroonian men detained for “homosexuality” | Amnesty International: "“Given the high level of officially sanctioned homophobia in Cameroon, those arrested under this law are at risk of attack or other forms of ill-treatment by fellow prisoners, or by prison authorities, because of their alleged sexual orientation.” said Erwin Van Der Borght, Amnesty International’s Africa Programme Director."

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Malawi Live Ammo Use A Rights Travesty

Malawi set for fresh anti-government protests | Amnesty International: "Malawians participating in nationwide protests planned for 17 August risk being killed or injured unless the authorities halt the use of live ammunition against anti-government demonstrators, Amnesty International said today."

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Crime and Corrupt Police a Lethal Brew in Rio

Killing of Brazilian judge exposes police corruption | Amnesty International: "The killing of a judge by gunmen near Rio de Janeiro highlights the city’s profound problems with police corruption and organized crime, Amnesty International said today."

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Maybe Perry Is His Own Worst Nightmare

Anti-Perry Protest at Capitol: "'Ricky Perry has not been great for Texas,' said Laura Derrick, who attended the rally. 'He's touted as having kept our economy solid when in fact we've had very large budget shortfall, that a lot of the jobs that have been created here have been low wage, no benefits jobs and our state is really in bad shape.'"

Well, W ran and won on a pretty shabby record. What strikes me are the debt notes I am finding. It would seem hat Rick Perry is the last person to sustain an image as a deficit hawk. Then again he is joined by a number of other illustrious GOP prevaricators. Could the GOP stand to see another hopeful go down? That is the subtext of my earlier Paul Ryan note.


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This is very funny

Rove: Perry ‘Not Presidential’ - The Daily Beast

All it means is that the mentor of an unpresidential Texan does not think much of Rick Perry. Which hardly suggests there is as much rift as there is similarity between the Perry and Bush camps. Both men are neocon to the bone. Both purport to be evangelical in the way of display at worship and other un-Jesus like things. Both have the capacity to open the jaws of hell and smirk as we fall in. Rove dissing Perry is like Palin Dissing Bachmann. Nothing separates any of them.


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Paul Ryan running? The author of our fiscal doom? Mr Supply Sui-Side

Paul Ryan Mulls 2012 Run: Report - The Daily Beast: "Republican congressman Paul Ryan is strongly considering a 2012 presidential run, according to the Weekly Standard. The magazine claims the Wisconsin representative is on vacation in Colorado to discuss the possible campaign with his family during the congressional recess."

I have never really fancied Colorado. There was a vibe there that got to me. Edgy. Dangerous. Scary. I once drove hell-bent from the heart of Denver to St. Francis, Kansas before I had the composure to stop for a bite to eat. If I was Paul Ryan I would not make any major decisions while on vacation. It could be very bad for all concerned.

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Welcome to the party that overreach will kill

The Republicans have lost since Barack Obama surfaced by virtue of a single fact - they are addicted to overreach. Any Republican who understood Mr. Obama would see that he was essentially a policy centrist and that his values were not those painted by Rush but much closer to ones painted before his time by Norman Rockwell. Anyway, if you want a window on the consistency of GOP overreach, see the squib below.

Here We Go Again; Republicans Want to Shut Down Government Over ObamaCares - Digg: "politicususa.com — Disappointed by their failure to destroy the economy, Republicans are mulling over the possibility of using their pledge to defund healthcare reform as excuse to shut down government in the next few weeks."

I love it. The GOP will never ever learn. It has moved from being an opposition to a laughing stock. I hear there is new space in Purgatory being prepared to accommodate you all.





This is not a dead horse

Abba's Way is the Way of Universal Reconciliation - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com: "The Universal Brotherhood of Man is Our Most Precious Possession, What There is of It. Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), Following the Equator"

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The book you never heard of

Abba's Way - Stephen C. Rose : IUniverse: "How we can move the world from its present violent precipice to a global society built around negotiation, individual achievement and openness to the presence of Abba in each person."

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The Panthers Were Stupid to Go for The Gun, the NRA is Stupid to Defend the Gun and Guns are Universally Anathema

The Secret History of Guns - Magazine - The Atlantic

Guns are anathema as are all weapons. Honor as a value is anathema as is all violent and lethal conflict. Competition violent and lethal is anathema. And so forth. The universal ontological values of progress are tolerance, democracy, helpfulness and non-idolatry. Until these are given their rightful place in universal human consciousness we continue to live under the sign of stupidity. Jesus died for these values. Religion exists to enable their muting and dimming and failure to take root.

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Think Enbridge and tremble

Enbridge makes low-profile bid to expand tar sands processing in the Gulf | The Washington Independent: "Enbridge, the Canadian oil pipeline company responsible for the largest oil spill in Midwest history, has announced plans to expand its U.S. pipeline network to move more oil across the country to refineries on the Gulf Coast."

Everything Canadian is not nice.

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Best Anti-Perry Comment by a Texan that I've Found

Rick Perry Thinks 'Printing More Money' Is 'Almost Treason' Because It Would Help The Economy And Thus Obama | TPMDC: "Or treasonous as say auctioning off public highways to the highest bidding foreigners and then sending all toll proceeds to Spain, or say as treasonous as using imminent domain to chase people of their land to make some half-baked road project that no one in the state supports, but PAYS for, or treasonous as enacting laws to punish employers of undocumented aliens EXCEPT for those in construction and gardening/cleaning, or treasonous as running up the largest outstanding debt in Texas's HISTORY. The only good about Dubya redux's white house run is that my fair state will finally be free from him!" Cap tip Lois


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TIME neglects the best site of all

TIME  "The 50 Best Websites of 2011"

I didn't even bother to look for mine. I know when I'm licked. We'll just keep our little secret. Where else can you get prescience totally without pride?


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Hey Barack print all the money you can and send a debased dollar to Rick

Rick Perry Thinks 'Printing More Money' Is 'Almost Treason' Because It Would Help The Economy And Thus Obama | TPMDC: "Crucially, Rick Perry appears to be saying that a new round of quantitative easing 'between now and the election' would improve the economy. That, he holds, would not be a good thing, but a crime. Because it would tilt the political balance in a way that harms Rick Perry's chances of defeating the incumbent President."

This is funny and sounds eminently true.

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This season the Yanks are better than a soap opera

New York Yankees at Kansas City Royals - August 16, 2011 | MLB.com Preview

You got Jorge walking a razor between obsolescence and indispensability
Bartolo my new hero out-Buddha-ing the Buddha while chewing gum in the bargain
Granderson floating about like an angel of mercy
Tx getting hit for spite whenever an opposing pitcher takes a mind to
And behind it all the diligent Girardi doing his evidently efficacious math while exuding serious calm and balance
And I could go on and on
Because for some reason this is human and it is interesting
It is true human interest
And I am hardly even a fan
Though I did journey to Fenway last week
Not something a Yankee fan wants to do too often if he cares about victories
Well Nova takes the mound tonight in KC and if he keeps on as he has been keeping on we are in for a nice clinic on how to save an order whose two primo stars CC and Mo have both been suffering incredible humiliations
Bring up the organ please





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Here's a ditty I wrote a while back


Answer To Prayer

I particularly like the guitars - three to be exact. Funky but apros pos.

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Carrying on that bank evolution idea

Response To The Ponzi Allegation | Stephen C. Rose

Say a savings bank deals interest on deposits according to two measures. First participation by percent of deposit. Second by level of total deposit. The lower the total the greater the return so that the lower moves up at a greater rate than higher amounts. There is extra credit given to the extent that a person's account is active on the spending side. Spending can consist of more than consuming things or purchasing services. It can also be transferring money to others. Jesus suggested this sort of notion in his parable of the talents. He faulted the lowest recipient who refused to invest his or her meager single talent and rewarded the one who had made good use of his or her original ten talents. The moral of this is that the person with one should not have been afraid to circulate it. Now if the person with few resources is rewarded both for participation (circulating) and and in proportion to the amount of his stake we establish another Jesus principal - that the last shall be first. We make possible the raising up of the bottom floor of the world's economies. The rich of course continue to do well but at a rate that means that their wealth is shared, If the highest rate for the pauper is 20 percent or even more, the topmost rate might be less than one percent. But less than one percent of a million is hardly chump change. Once we think in this direction, we can begin to talk honestly about work as a privilege and jobs as an option and exercise of creativity as the right of each human being.



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Obama finally puts it ALL on the table

I first noted this in Mid August, 2011. The President knew from the git-go that the GOP had no interest in cooperation. His gestures were entirely designed to educate the American people to what he already knew. It was hardly mere racism except on the edges. Clinton suffered the same attack. Newt turned it into the default mode of the GOP. But if you want to know roughly when the President began putting on the gloves, this was it. And of course the wages of GOP sin is that the President will doubtless win if the economy does not tank.

Obama goes head-to-head with tea party activist | The Raw Story: "'In fairness, since I have been called a socialist who wasn't born in this country, who is destroying America and taking away its freedoms because I passed a health care bill, I am all for lowering the rhetoric.'"

It has always been about Barack. He's finally getting down to it. When he does he will win.





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Zapping Radar from my list of sources

ShortFormContent at Blogger: Sources

Every time I go to Radar I first see the sorts of images I associate with pornography. Maybe celebrity and pornography are related. I don't know. Maybe Radar and pornography? I often see that they do not confine their front page to several stories, but to multiple stories about the same thing. In this case it is suicide-related. What galls me is that there is much about every topic you find on Radar that people would ordinarily avoid like the plague. Like most suicides. Maybe if it is far enough removed it qualifies as salacious or something Again, I wouldn't know. The result is that, since time is limited and I depend on salient sources, Radar is being removed from my Sources list as we speak.

As genetic connections are made can cures be far behind?

PsycPORT Article: "TORONTO - Canadian researchers have uncovered some new genes that appear to contribute to ADHD in some children ????? and found an intriguing genetic overlap with other neuropsychiatric conditions, in particular autism."

It is hard to believe we are not on the threshold of some incredible breakthroughs. It is nice that some are using their minds to move in a positive direction. That would not include many members of Congress at this point.

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All sorts and conditions


Amazing
I go out for a walk and think I will go down this street
But I see there is a serious congestion - a line that seems double wide and more in places
So I double back and figure I will go across the next block
As I walk I notice that the line extends to the end of this block
And that I cannot parse from looking what they are waitng for
There is no one race or age or dress
Most conspicuous would be to me the men wearing coats and ties and standing dignified and silent
I hate waiting in line
This line that looks like America is waiting silently
At the corner I see that it extends down the other block
I talk to a young man who stands behind an older woman
He explains that they are waiting for a job fair
The word unemployed escapes his lips 
In a nanosecond I sense he is vastly qualified and probably one of a million like himself
I suggest that nothing seems to be working and he and the woman both nod
I explain that I think circulation of money might do the trick if it was all on a computer and the lower level raises as everyone recycles it
And jobs become a privilege
And truly necessary work is well paid
They nod with approval about the lower level raising
Here at home I think that maybe we are talking the evolution of savings banks

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Of course Google is a smartphone company, why do you ask?

Is Google Turning Into a Mobile Phone Company? No, It Says - NYTimes.com

What Google is not is a smart future company because it has not devoted any real energy to thinking about the biggest problem we have which is known as sprawl and roads and oil and all that stuff which translates into the principalities and powers of this present world which may be a phrase that not even Google understands. (Opting instead to create a driverless car that wrecks itself as it goes.) There is a Duh factor in all of us. Be open to it. It crops up all the time.

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Perry Gives Contracts in Exchange for Donations

Gov. Rick Perry's big donors fare well in Texas - latimes.com: "Many of the GOP presidential candidate's mega-donors have won hefty contracts or appointments. Perry's aides vigorously dispute that any got special perks."

It's called the Big Rock Candy Mountain but instead of lemonade fat contracts spring and those Texas old boys say it's good to have a W type who knows how to scratch a back and all goes well for the wealthy who know what politics is really all about. Obama never learned at this particular trough. That's why I love him.

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High Noon in Tripoli

Col Gaddafi fires scud missile at rebel territory as Nato braces itself for final violent showdown - Telegraph: "Col Muammar Gaddafi's Libyan government appeared to be preparing for a last violent final showdown after it emerged that his beleaguered regime had fired a Scud missile at rebel territory as opposition forces closed in on Tripoli."

And we thought this was a stalemate?

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Markets don't predict a damned thing

Stock Crash Erased, Yet Where Is the Optimism? - The Daily Beast: "Stock surges erased last week’s crash, yet Americans remain in a funk. Zachary Karabell on why bad news trumps good—and the computers running the markets don’t care about either."

They are full of sound and fury signifying nothing but a whole lot of trading being done by relatively few. We would do well to think this through and devise a more reasonable system of dealing with reality (our money) in a cauldron we can neither understand or control. My own line of inquiry is to see whether universal commitment to circulating money would not accelerate growth enough to enable a percentage based return to all that would automatically up the levels at the bottom. Probably too reasonable, right?

We need to make the leap of faith back to no capital punishment period

PsycPORT Article: "FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. - An Army sergeant accused of fatally shooting five service members at a combat stress clinic in Iraq does not deserve the death penalty, a defense attorney said Thursday, arguing his client's actions could not have been premeditated because of his deteriorating mental health."


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If you are within hearing or seeing distance of chld abuse

The most hated person in America? | Psychology Today: "3. Improved violence prevention programs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has an excellent violence prevention site that includes both the National Violent Death Reporting System and useful information about understanding child maltreatment. On a related note, the American Psychological Association has an extensive website on family caregiving."

The links at the site are apposite.

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Ultimately we will pay a monthly fee to subscribe to life

Can Turning Foreclosures Into Rental Properties Save the Housing Market? - ProPublica: "Earlier this week, the federal government put out a request for ideas on how to transform some of the roughly 250,000 government-owned foreclosed homes into rental properties."

This is just the first step. Someday the supercomputer will lend a hand. Wheee!

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Per Caritatem is one of my favorite sites

Per Caritatem: "Loïc Wacquant on the Causes of American Anti-intellectualism: Mammon-worship, Disunity, Puppetry, Fragmentation and Escapism"

We like people who think.

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The 1960s through one pair of eyes

Adam Becomes a Father, Finishes Seminary and Becomes a Professional Journalist 1961 - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com: "Adam and Ganya stayed in Hastings Hall until the pregnancy became gloriously obvious. Then they moved to a Teacher's College apartment in Bancroft Hall. It was a half a block away."

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Côte d’Ivoire regresses on the appointment front

Côte d’Ivoire: Military Promotions Mock Abuse Victims | Human Rights Watch: "(Washington) – The promotion of two Côte d’Ivoire military commanders against whom there are serious allegations of involvement in grave crimes raises concerns about President Alassane Ouattara’s commitment to end impunity and ensure justice for victims, Human Rights Watch said today."

Ordinarily when trying to improve conditions you do not allow the fox into the chicken coop. But promotion has a tendency to double as a means of trying to get rid of problems. In general the result is a further delay of progress warranting continued agitation for democratic reform.


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Here's your key Amnesty page

Demanding change in the Middle East and North Africa | Amnesty International

Here's your key Amnesty page for keeping tabs on the unfolding human rights struggle in the Middle East and Africa. It warrants a healthy bookmark on your various SN sites.

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The movement to close roads is moving around the world

Playing Out (5): "Just to say that our road was closed for four days whilst the balloon festival was on and it was bliss for children and adults alike. We had impromptu, informal low key street parties on the road with fire pits that the kids crowded around and melted marshmallows and adults stared at mesmerized. Children biking, scooting and just plain old playing down the middle of the road from early morning till the shouts for dinner went out in the dusky twilight!"

From the grass roots my friends
The rights of way belong to us
Cars are lethal unstruments
The future is car free


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Can Obama Do The Job?

Iowa Republicans Still Waiting For Superman (Or Woman) : It's All Politics : NPR: "Roberts: I want both. I do want someone who's exciting, to get the party fired up. And also somebody who can do the job. I don't know that we have that."

Obama may be the first Peircean president
A Pearcean is a person who thinks in threes instead of twos
A person for whom binary is a tool not a philosphy
A person who cleaves to C. S. Peirce's triadic pragmaticism
Most simply Obama reacts to signs he sees rising
Not by making an immediate judgment but by considering its elements
(Because of this he leaves room for a third element)

First the sign and second the blunt reality that emerges when what was vague and indistinct is represented
That representation is the second
Things might end there if Obama stopped there as many do
But he goes on to propound an experimental a conclusion
A hypothesis based on such factors as a consideration for the ongoingness of life - continuity
And the good of the community
He propounds a philosophy of moving forward which issues in a concrete reality experiential and real
We call it the third
Thirdness
Different from thinking in twos like, ah, W, Palin and others one could name

When the third does not pan out the process of dealing with the sign (the general) begins again
Until a satisfactory third works takes on life becomes history
This is the redemptive reason why Obama has a better chance than a binary thinker
A we-they, intolerant and anti-democratic  thinker
He can eventually get done much of what he puts his triadic thinking mind to 
When you wonder Obama C. S. Peirce
Obama does whether he knows it or not

RECCMENDATION Richard Gordon Quantum Touch

The Slow as Molasses Press